


Before the Dawn

by Kabansky



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Cold War, Espionage, Insanity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2019-02-07 22:15:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12850617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kabansky/pseuds/Kabansky
Summary: Prequel to a Prequel.  Another quick segment that I wrote a LONG time ago, and originally was going to be the prologue to Streetlights.  A few hints to some hidden identities here, a gunfight there, and I hope I didn't make it too confusing.  RL made progress stupid slow, but It'll get there.





	Before the Dawn

November 29, 1989

 

Deep in the bowels of the crumbling capital of a failed empire, a lone figure made his way through frozen, deserted streets.  Icy wind lashed his fur like a whip, but the figure plodded relentlessly on through knee-deep snow, his masked head forward and eyes darker than night.  A streetlight flickered ominously ahead of him in the gathering dusk, and the figure’s ears pricked up instinctively.

The faint, yet, strangely warm sound of a church choir had suddenly begun floating through the street.  With a pang of nostalgia, the figure recognized it as an ancient hymn that he had not heard in years.  No one in this city had.

He stopped beside a small, dilapidated doorway that had once been the entrance to a tavern of some sort.  An ancient phonograph sat running on the shelf behind the large display window, which was shattered so severely it looked as if it were an immense tangle of spider webs.  Spine-tingling orthodox chants filled the figure’s ears as he prodded the door with a leather-gloved paw, which slid open with surprising ease.

Once inside, the figure found himself in the dank, dreary remnants of a former tavern.  The ornate tile floor had been reduced to nothing more than a filthy, soaking wet surface, and bar was so covered in dust that it looked like snow.  Dozens of liquor bottles sat forgotten behind it, not all of them empty.

The figure’s breath escaped in visible puffs as he meandered through the broken, rotting bar stools that lay in heaps all over the room towards a second figure, who stood waiting beside the door to the backroom.  He was dressed identically to the first mammal: in multiple layers of snow pants and a thick, insulated parka.  His boots gave a sharp scraping noise as he turned on the spot to face the approaching mammal.  Behind a black cotton ski mask, his dark eyes betrayed a hint of interest, and lowered the shortened Kalashnikov he had been pointing in the figure’s direction since the door opened.  He spoke in an obscure Slavic tongue, his tone like solid granite.

“No one follow you?”

The first figure shook his head and removed his paw from the handle of the Makarov he had been grasping within his pocket.  “We are here with Dola alone.”  He replied in the same language, his voice slightly lighter and more strongly accented. 

The second figure nodded understandingly, and opened the door for them both, revealing a well-lit concrete stairwell that led straight down about twenty steps to a second door, this one solid steel.  Once they were both inside, he shut the door behind them and locked it, then led the first figure downwards, both mammals’ footsteps echoing almost musically in the concrete space.

“This way to bunker.” The second figure said as they reached the steel door at the bottom.  Before he could unlock it, the door suddenly shifted and swung inward, and the two mammals found themselves looking directly into the massive limestone eyes of a bear’s head, its mouth open in a silent, eternal roar that sent chills down both mammals’ spines. 

“Havel and Baran, enter now.  No need to be shy.”  A voice said from the opposite end of the bunker, directly beneath a life-sized statue of a bear’s head.  A burly wolverine in a black leather overcoat stood waiting, his ski mask pushed up and arms folded.  Beside him, a taller masked mammal stood holding an AK-74 at low ready.  This mammal, however, was completely covered from head to toe in white coveralls and boots.  Underneath his parka, the top of a plate carrier and magazine pouches were barely visible.  Instead of a ski mask that allowed his mouth to poke through, his entire face was covered, and ballistic goggles hid his eyes from view.

As they stepped inside, they found themselves a cavernous concrete room, with several doors lining the walls.  Behind them, a second masked mammal closed the reinforced metal door with a resounding clang, and tightened the wheel to lock it.  Once confident the door was sufficiently shut, the wolverine stepped forward, holding a large suitcase in one paw.  A small, plastic tube poked out from one corner. 

“He is alive and well?”  Baran asked the wolverine as they met in the center of the room.  The wolverine extended the suitcase to him, who accepted it with numb paws.  “He has endured,” The wolverine replied, nodded assuredly.  “And will fulfill his purpose”. 

"Baran and I will take him where he needs to go.”  Havel said confidently, adjusting his rifle’s sling. 

“I know you will,” The wolverine replied simply.  “But, my friends…this child will make you targets.”

Havel and Baran exchanged subtle glances, wondering why the wolverine was telling them something they knew to be intuitively obvious. 

“That is why they will go with you.”  The wolverine continued, gesturing to the masked figures that now both stood on either side of him, regarding Havel and Baran with stony, sightless gazes.  “You will need all the help you can get,” He added, sensing their confusion.

“Very well,” Baran replied, nodding at the mammals on either side of the wolverine.   “We go now.”  He and Havel turned on the spot and made for the door, the two masked mammals in tow.

The door clanged shut, leaving the wolverine alone in the room.  For a moment, silence colder than the air enveloped him, and he could almost feel eyes on the back of his neck.  His fur beginning to stand on end, he turned to one of the doors along the wall.  As he did, a sudden thought occurred to the wolverine, and he paused.

The bear statue’s limestone eyes almost seemed to follow him as he looked back towards it.  So ferocious, so alive…but that was the irony of this place:  a bunker that studied life and death…in the dead center of a dead empire.  The wolverine stared back at the statue unfalteringly, and a small grin seeped onto his muzzle.  His lips parted slowly, and he spoke one last time, this time in English.  “They may call you a demon, but…you are nothing more than bones and limestone now.  I am the only demon here.” 

With that, he left the statue alone in the silent bunker.

 

 

 

For nearly an hour, the four mammals had been navigating the city on foot.  Taking shortcuts, ducking and hiding, keeping their eyes peeled and weapons ready were business as usual to them.  They knew how to survive this wasteland well, and they knew how to escape it. 

At length, they reached the desolate edge of a large military airfield, where one hundred yards away, a small cargo plane sat waiting, engines already running.  All of its lights were blacked out, so it was barely visible in the stormy winter night.

Havel knelt by a small gap in a long, barbed-wire fence, eyes scanning the dark buildings behind them with his rifle raised.  Baran crouched with his back to the fence, weapon at the ready also.  The heavy suitcase had been stuffed inside a rucksack on his back, but the masked ram showed no signs of fatigue.  There were more important things to worry about than any pain in his back.

“Any movement, Karbanosk?”  Havel asked one of the white coverall-clad mammals, who was scanning the airfield ahead through the expensive scope on his rifle.

“None.”  He replied, his voice icier than the wind on Havel’s lips.  “I go first.  Baran, you follow.  Havel and Anton, follow Baran.”

The figure took off across the snowy airfield with Baran in tow, their thick snow pants sloshing noisily as they went.  Behind them, the other two stood to follow, when Havel noticed something moving out of the corner of his eye. 

“Anton…”  He began, raising his rifle in the direction they had come from.  Anton slowed down somewhat and turned his head around, immediately raising his rifle also.

Two hundred meters away across the parking lot, armed mammals seemed to appear out of nowhere.  Their shouts echoed through the wind as flashlights swirled around the streets, their beams quickly finding their way directly onto Havel and Anton.

The moment they turned to follow Karbanosk and Baran, gunfire erupted from the other side of the parking lot, and Anton felt three bullets snap past his head in rapid succession.  Without missing a beat, both mammals returned fire, sending their attackers scattering for cover.  

“KEEP GOING NOW!”  Anton yelled at Havel, who took off towards the plane, where Karbanosk and Baran were sprinting up the open ramp. 

Once inside, Baran quickly shed his rucksack on a row of seats that was positioned on wall, letting it down as gently as his exhausted, frozen paws could manage.  He grabbed the buckles of a seatbelt and stretched them as far as they could go, and looped them around the rucksack straps.  As soon as it was securely buckled in, Baran plucked his gun from its holster and ran to the ramp’s edge, ready to close it as soon as Havel and Anton were on board.  Karbanosk ran towards Havel, firing over his head at the attacking crowd. 

“You get on board, we hold them off!”  He shouted as Havel passed him.  Seeing Anton approaching, he squeezed off five more rounds at the mammals that had reached the fence, ignoring the bullets that whizzed by him all the while. 

Anton and Karbanosk ran the final few feet to the ramp together, both mammals silently acknowledging something between themselves.  As they reached the top of the ramp and the plane’s expansive cargo bay, their eyes met through their goggles, and the two exchanged a mutual nod.  Spinning around, Anton’s rifle spat five rounds into Baran’s back, ending the ram’s life in a hail of bullets.  Karbanosk did the same to Havel, who shouted in rage and shock as he fell to the floor of the cargo bay.

Karbanosk stepped over Baran’s body, and hit the lever to close the ramp, which silenced the roar of the engines and gunfire outside as the plane began to move.  Anton knelt over Havel and pulled the sweaty ski mask off to reveal the face of a young male bobcat.  Havel was breathing rapidly and blood was filling his mouth, but he showed no signs of fear.  He instead bore a look of only disturbing, maniacal satisfaction. 

Anton frowned curiously as Havel began to let out the most frightening laugh he had ever heard.  Karbanosk stood over them both, equally confused.

“Every breath you take is a waste!”  Havel spat, blood trickling down the corner of his mouth, his voice suddenly raspy, a sharp contrast to his normal thick accent. “You think you stopped anything?” 

“What did they do to him?”  Anton responded firmly.

“Dola will eat your soul alive like he devoured your daughter, you fucking faggot!”  The bobcat screeched at Karbanosk, his eyes going dark.  He looked absolutely demented.  Karbanosk felt a chill run down his spine at the mention of “Dola”.  He placed his boot on Havel’s heaving, twitching chest. Feeling an uncontrollable wave of hatred boiling up within, he brought the barrel of his AK-74 directly to Havel’s forehead.

“I’m going to devour _your_ soul…” He began, struggling to keep his tone calm.  His finger twitched on the trigger.  “I swear to God…”

Havel’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets, and he spat blood onto Karbanosk’s boot. 

“God…is not real!”  He exclaimed with a sardonic laugh, and then shouted in anger as Anton delivered a powerful slap across the face with a gloved paw.  Havel stopped laughing, but a maniacal grin remained.  “God…abandoned you...” he managed to gasp out, before breaking into laughter again. 

“This…” Karbanosk growled, “… _is_ real.”  He fired once, and the laughter ceased immediately.  Karbanosk continued to squeeze the trigger, but heard only clicking.

As if on cue, a muffled cry came from inside the rucksack, and both mammals turned towards it instinctively.  They stood and walked towards it, their footsteps echoing loudly in the empty cargo bay, leaving Havel’s lifeless body where it lay, the bobcat’s face frozen in an eternal laugh.

Karbanosk removed the suitcase and with trembling fingers, and unclasped it.  When he pushed the lid open, his breath caught in his throat.  A baby fennec, no more than a year or so old, was wrapped in blankets inside the padded container, his teeth clamped down on the hose that gave him oxygen.  Anton  watched as Karbanosk picked the baby fennec up out of his prison, making sure to keep the blankets wrapped firmly around him, and for a moment, they simply stared at each other.

  Remembering that he was wearing ballistic goggles, Karbanosk reached up with one paw and pushed them onto his forehead, and the fennec stared mesmerized into kind, sky-blue eyes, grey fur visible around them in the space that his balaclava did not cover.  He then pulled the mask down to reveal the face of a snowy leopard, his grey fur damp from sweat.

“He is marked. Dola did it himself,” Anton said, trepidation discernable in his tone.  “Nothing will keep him immune, but the injection will allow him to have normal life.”

Anton stood and picked up his rifle.  Turning to leave in the direction of the cockpit, he paused and looked back at his partner, who was yawning widely underneath his balaclava.  “I will speak with pilots about what to do with Havel and Baran.  You sleep.  We land in Zootopia tommorow.” 

Karbanosk leaned back in his seat, the adrenaline finally taking its toll.  Now that his senses were no longer wired for a fight, his limbs felt like lead, and his mind began to fog up.

“Eat something too, Anton,” Karbanosk replied.  “Don’t save it all for the little one.” 

Anton nodded his head wearily in response, and he left for the cockpit, leaving Karbanosk alone in the cargo bay with the fennec.  He glanced down at the toddler in his arms and sighed.  Even though they had saved him from a horrific fate, Karbanosk could not help but worry about how this would affect him in the future.  He would never be immune.  Lifting up the blankets slightly, he could see the reddened, irritated flesh on the toddler’s lower back.  He did not deserve this.  No one did.

The droning hum of the plane’s engines lulled them to sleep, with the fennec’s head resting on Karbanosk’s chest. 


End file.
